Following a hectic six months of business, Leeds-based portfolio director Gerald Jennings says the company is ideally placed to share in the city's growing success, while helping Leeds to go up a league.

He said: "We hold a strong double hand, with work underway on the fully-funded Trinity Leeds scheme (a joint venture with Caddick Developments) – that will deliver by 2010 the city centre's first one million square foot regional shopping destination and, complementing this, we have the flagship White Rose Shopping Centre in south Leeds, which continues to go from strength to strength attracting footfall of more than 12m a year.

"With a strong fashion-led offer at both centres designed to appeal to a large and affluent catchment – we are able to cater for all kinds of shoppers whether arriving by car, on public transport or on foot."

As well as providing a new gateway to the city centre, Trinity Leeds, with its 120 plus units and a finished value of £650m, will help Leeds to climb to fourth place in the UK table of shopping destinations – overtaking Manchester in the process.

Investment in further development activity has been made possible through the disposal of assets within the portfolio, including the successful completion earlier this year of sale of the Coppergate Centre in York.

Land Securities remains an investor in York with the Hungate regeneration scheme- a 700-plus residential-led mixed use development being carried out in partnership with Evans Property Group and Crosby Lend Lease.

While much of the focus over the past six months has been on developments in Leeds, Land Securities has also strengthened its offer in Harrogate with the opening at Victoria Shopping Centre of the town's first H&M store.

Mr Jennings added: "While looking back on a busy, challenging, but successful year of activity in Yorkshire, we are increasingly mindful of the role that companies such as ourselves can play in ensuring that the wealth and opportunity we create can be shared more widely and help to narrow the gap.

"To this end we were delighted to jointly sponsor with Yorkshire Forward, the landmark Leeds Ahead conference addressed by Environment Secretary and Leeds Central MP Hilary Benn, at which he stated that narrowing the gap between the rich and poor is the greatest challenge that Leeds faces.


"We fully agree with this and have, through an alliance with fellow property companies Evans and Munroe K, created an initiative in South Leeds known as ARISE – which is providing funding for grass-roots activities in an area of the city that suffers from some of the worst instances of deprivation."

Mr Jennings' comments came as Land Securities reported an 8.8 per cent reduction in the value of its overall portfolio, but said it was outperforming industry benchmarks and that its planned demerger was progressing well.

The firm said the value of its properties fell by £1.28bn in the year ended March 31 to around £13.58bn.

"The market is demanding but we have performed well in relative terms this year and our results show considerable success in terms of value preservation in the face of a sharply falling market," Chief Executive Francis Salway said in a statement.